Sen. Cruz Touts Tax Reform, Legislative Victories on Texas Radio

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 -- The office of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, issued the following news release:

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) appeared on WOAI's 'The Joe Pags Show,' and KTRH's 'The Michael Berry Show,' to discuss his legislative efforts on behalf of Texans, and the major, historic tax reform legislation President Trump recently signed into law.

On "The Joe Pags Show," Sen. Cruz discussed a handful of the tremendous victories achieved in 2017 for the Lone Star state, including repealing Obamacare's individual mandate, historic tax, and regulatory reform, and appointing strong constitutionalist judges to the federal bench.

"We saw major accomplishments in 2017," Sen. Cruz said. "I've said from the beginning, the four big priorities are tax reform, regulatory reform, Obamacare, and judges. And if you look at that, we delivered in a big, big way on all four of those [priorities]. Tax reform - the tax reform bill was historic. It is a tax cut for virtually every taxpayer in America. It is reducing taxes on small businesses, on farmers, on ranchers, on job producers. It benefits young people. It benefits parents. It benefits working men and women. It's designed to bring millions of jobs back to America, to raise wages. That was a major victory, and I was really encouraged Republicans were finally able to get our act together, come together, stand as one, and get it passed. That was a big deal. We also saw on regulatory reform - the administration has delivered in a very real way lifting the burdens of regulations on small businesses, on job producers. That's benefitting Texas, and that's bringing jobs back to Texas."

Sen. Cruz continued, "On judges, we saw tremendous victories last year. We saw 12 judges for the Federal Courts of Appeals confirmed. That's the most in the first year of a president's term in history. And we also saw Neil Gorsuch confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Two of those judges are here in Texas on the Fifth Circuit. Strong, constitutionalist, conservatives. Those are big, big victories. And on Obamacare, we started to get the job done by repealing the individual mandate. It's not everything, but it's a big step in the right direction, and I fought very, very hard to get that done and was very pleased to end the year with a big victory there."

Sen. Cruz continued, highlighting the five pieces of legislation he authored that were signed into law in the last year.

"In Texas the economy is booming," Sen. Cruz said. "It's booming because we understand a commonsense proposition which is that you lower taxes, you lift regulations, you allow small businesses and job creators to create jobs, and the result is incredible prosperity. That's built the great state of Texas. Now I was really encouraged last year, in that I had five pieces of legislation pass into law - pass through the Senate, pass Congress and be signed into law.

"Number one, the NASA Authorization Act. It was the first NASA Authorization Act in seven years. In Houston and Southeast Texas, there are tens of thousands of jobs that depend upon America leading the world in space and commercial space, and we had bipartisan cooperation to pass the NASA Authorization Act.

"Number two, passing major hurricane tax relief, targeted at Hurricane Harvey. I joined with John Cornyn and Marco Rubio and we passed the Cruz-Cornyn-Rubio tax relief bill, which provided relief to families who were impacted by Harvey, to millions of Texans up and down the Gulf Coast.

"Number three, passed legislation directing the State Department to designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. They've done that now. That's an important step to standing up to the dangers of Kim Jong-un and a nuclear North Korea.

"Number four is passing legislation that I joined with Kevin Brady from Texas, allowing states to condition unemployment benefits on passing a drug test. We rescinded an Obama regulation that made no sense, and was hurting jobs.

"And number five was a big victory we had in the tax bill last month, which is an amendment I introduced to allow parents to use College 529 Savings Plans. Tax advantaged savings plans that you can save for college, to expand that, so that you can also use it for K-12 education, for public school, for private school, for parochial school, for religious school. It's the most far-reaching federal school choice legislation that has ever passed. And that passed the Senate, and the president signed it into law. Soit was a big, big year for victories for parents, and working men and women in the state of Texas."

On the 'Michael Berry Show,' Sen. Cruz discussed the peaceful protests in Iran, and commended the administration for supporting the Iranian people.

"This is actually a tremendous important time, not only for Iran, but for America, and for the whole world." Sen. Cruz said. "There are thousands of people right now that are standing up in the streets of Iran protesting against their government. Their government is tyrannical, it's oppressive, it's a bunch of religious zealots, and extremists."

Sen. Cruz continued, "We're seeing right now women - you want to see an incredible display of courage? Women standing in public squares pulling off their hijabs, pulling of their face masks, and holding it up to expose their faces to the world. They are facing literally torture and death because they have the courage to say, 'I want to be free. The Ayatollah Khamenei and the mullahs should not be oppressing us.' That is an incredible moment of courage. The Ayatollah Khamenei, when he leads chants of death to America, and death to Israel, I believe him. He wants to murder as many Americans as possible. I commend the President and the administration for speaking out in support of these protests. I've called on the President and the administration to do everything they can to support these protests, because there are very few things that would be more beneficial to U.S. national security than seeing the Ayatollah Khamenei tumble from power, and seeing a free and democratic Iran."

Sen. Cruz on The Joe Pags Show (https://youtu.be/Gd6mkO2vsNE)

Sen. Cruz on The Michael Berry Show (https://youtu.be/euMx1PfacNU)